I woke up this morning to news that Bayern Munich have entered the transfer race for Genoa central defender and top Tottenham Hotspur January target Radu Dragusin.
Here’s the deal — the breathless reports you’re seeing via social media and various aggregators apparently stems from one paragraph in a TuttoMercatoWeb transfer roundup article, translated from Italian via Google below:
Radu Dragusin between Bayern Munich and Tottenham – Genoa’s defender is increasingly coveted. Napoli seem almost definitively out for its arrival, while the Bavarians in the last few hours have expressed their intention to offer 24 million euros plus 6 bonuses for the Romanian defender, sanctioning for now the overtaking on Tottenham. A revival in the next few hours of Londoners who do not give up their prey is likely: for Dragusin a contract is ready until 30 June 2028 at 2 million per year.
Sounds scary, right? Here’s why you shouldn’t panic, at least yet.
First, this is coming from one source — an Italian media outlet that’s semi-notorious for being pretty unreliable, and also generous with regards to Italian clubs. I had a look through Florian Plettenberg’s twitter account and he does say Bayern are taking a look, but it’s not really gone beyond that yet.
News #Dragusin: FC Bayern has informed about the 21 y/o in the last days. Bosses informed about contract and transfer details.
Possible transfer fee is €25m + bonus payments at this stage.
Been told: Tottenham & Neapel are the most concrete options at this stage.… pic.twitter.com/BooVvQuyIz
— Florian Plettenberg (@Plettigoal) January 8, 2024
Tottenham has had full personal agreement with Dragusin and his agent for a few days now, meaning they’ve already worked out what his wages will be should he move. All reporting I’ve seen is that Dragusin would prefer a move to the Premier League over his other options, including Napoli, and that it’s just a matter of hashing out the transfer fee between the clubs. Napoli was previously making cash plus player offers for Dragusin and have since seemingly walked back their interest.
So is Bayern actually interested? Well, maybe. We know they’re looking at defensive options because they’re also considering a small budget move for Spurs’ Eric Dier. But Plettenberg doesn’t make it sound like it’s moved past the inquiry stage at this point, and I’m inclined to believe that this has more to do with Genoa trying to get Spurs to increase their offer (or make a more favorable payment structure) than any serious interest from Bayern.
That said, there’s also been reports that Spurs are making inquiries about a €35m move for 23-year old Sevilla defender Loïc Badé. If Spurs make a pivot, that’s probably whom they’re going to pivot to. But we’re not there yet, and at this point there’s not a ton of evidence to suggest that we should be worried.